October 19, 2026
BLS Acquisition Redraws Acuity’s New England Map
Boston Light Source acquires Lighting Affiliates, uniting three states under one agency
Acuity’s map of southern New England got simpler on Monday. Boston Light Source (BLS), the longtime Lithonia and Acuity agent for Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, has acquired Lighting Affiliates, Acuity’s agent for Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. Two agencies that spent years on opposite sides of a state line, each widely regarded locally as the market-share leader among lighting agents in its territory, are now one company.
From its home base in the City of Champions, BLS now reaches from the tip of Cape Cod to the New York border. The combined agency cites 65 employees across the three states.
The BLS announcement does not mention Acuity, the North American lighting industry leader, by name. For some of our readers, that omission is the story: the Acuity map in southern New England has been redrawn, and three states now answer to one agency.
The Answers Behind the Announcement
Lighting Affiliates will operate as BLS under principals Fred Moynihan, the agency’s CEO, and Jennifer Pierce. The combined company keeps the BLS name and leadership structure and, it appears, a Connecticut team that will look familiar to the customers who already know it.
Pierce told us that BLS’ Brian DeConciliis will oversee day-to-day operations in Connecticut, working closely with BLS leadership in Boston and drawing on resources across the organization. The office will stay in Rocky Hill, a decision she said would ensure “continuity for employees, manufacturers, and customers.” Brian Fox, who built Lighting Affiliates, will remain available as a consultant on an as-needed basis to support the transition.
A combination of these two agencies has come up in industry chatter for the past few years. The rumor, it turns out, had a filing date. Connecticut Secretary of State records show that a new business certificate for BLS was issued in Connecticut on September 30.
A Handoff That Makes More Sense in Retrospect
In September, BLS appointed DeConciliis to a principal. At the time it read as an internal promotion. Looking back, it appears to have been a preamble to this deal. Weeks later, he is the executive responsible for the agency’s Connecticut business.
Fox’s new role points the other way. After a long career building Lighting Affiliates, an as-needed consulting arrangement suggests the deal also serves as a succession plan, giving the founder an orderly phase-out instead of an abrupt exit. Neither BLS nor Fox has described his plans as retirement, and we won’t either. Moynihan’s comments in the release support the succession reading. “Brian and I have known each other and worked alongside one another in this industry for many years,” he said, adding that he has great respect for the agency Fox built.
The sequence looks like a transition both sides took time to arrange. It reads as a founder’s friendly handoff between longtime neighbors and colleagues.
Two Line Cards, Only Five Differences
According to the agencies’ published line cards, which we reviewed, each agency represents just over 150 lines, including more than 30 Acuity brands on each card. Rep mergers usually create a long list of line conflicts. In this case, there is very little to sort out. Only five lines on BLS’s card are not already on Lighting Affiliates’ Connecticut card: ANP Lighting, ATG LED Lighting, Bodine, Designplan Lighting and Fall River’s Spectrum Lighting.
That means the two cards already closely match. For nearly every manufacturer on either card, the deal changes the name on the agency’s door and leaves the relationship as it was. Few rep consolidations of this size appear to have so few manufacturer-line conflicts to resolve.
Bodine is a unique outlier. The Signify-owned company is best known for emergency drivers and other components, and it divides New England among three competing agents: BLS in Boston, Reflex Lighting in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, and Apex Lighting in Connecticut.
Why New England Buys Like One Market
The electrical supply channel has long treated New England’s six states as one market. The region’s marketplace is tightly integrated, and buying decisions and product purchases often happen in a neighboring state. Standard Electric in Greater Boston and EW in Connecticut, two large regional distribution houses, are both USESI distributors. They are sometimes part of the same USESI buying decisions or rebate considerations.
Projects cross state lines too. A Providence contractor could win the bid on a large Connecticut casino project. A Payette specification for a university campus could land in Western Massachusetts. Under the old map, an Acuity project that started on one side of the agency line could finish on the other, with a handoff between agencies along the way. Now one Acuity agent can follow a project from specification through bid across all three states.
BLS’s new footprint holds roughly the same population as Georgia. With the Boston, Providence, Hartford and Fairfield County metro areas inside its borders, its lighting buying power may well be greater. The acquisition creates a three-state territory with no shortage of architectural talent, though Dunkin’ may still have more locations than the architects have offices.
Twenty Years of Redrawing the New England Rep Map
Over the past two decades, the lighting rep world has gradually organized itself around the market the channel already recognized.
- Apex Lighting, the Genlyte Solutions agent, started in Connecticut and became the first lighting agent of a major manufacturer to cover all six New England states.
- Illuminate followed as the six-state agent for Hubbell Lighting (now Current) and later joined forces with longtime electrical supply rep Yusen.
- More recently, Reflex Lighting completed its New England coverage by acquiring the assets of Charron Inc. in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, a deal we covered in November 2022.
- Exposure, meanwhile, is strong across all New England with the full suite of Legrand lighting & control lines.
- LGI, a six-state New England agent once best known as the Juno Lighting rep before Acuity acquired Juno last decade, carries a specialized line card that pursues both project and stock business across the region.
- Lighting Affiliates moved from Cooper Lighting to Acuity in 2010 and became the Acuity counterpart to BLS in Connecticut and Western Mass.
Acuity has mostly stayed out of the consolidation trend. Geographic agency consolidation has reshaped rep maps across the U.S. and Canada over the past 20 years, and especially this decade, but Acuity agents have largely remained independent and local. The exceptions are recent and few. Illuminations, Inc. expanded to cover all of Northern New Jersey and the New York metro area, and this year in Ohio, Acuity’s Cleveland and Columbus agencies came together to form DLS Group. BLS and Lighting Affiliates now join that short list.
After this deal, Acuity’s New England coverage is still divided between north and south. Visible Light remains Acuity’s partner in northern New England and is not part of the combination. Every other major manufacturer has its New England business under one agency, or close to it. Acuity is down to two.
Fifty Years and a Bowl of Chowder
BLS was founded in 1977 and enters its 50th year in 2027. That makes it seven years older than the Boston Sail Loft, its neighbor on the Boston waterfront, which opened in 1984. When locals specify the best New England clam chowder in Boston, the Sail Loft is often a one-name spec, and BLS has had the luxury of walking to it for lunch.
Lighting Affiliates retires its name as one of New England’s longer-running agency brands. BLS heads into its 50th year with three states, 65 employees and Acuity’s southern New England business under one roof. For lighting people in the region, the remaining question is how long a market that buys as one keeps two Acuity maps.
